It's only cost me everything I had to give
It's only cost me everything I love
And though it's not the way I'd choose to live
I've come too far now to give up

And I walk through my days like this
And I take it as it comes
Through my days like this
But I'm holding on

I give my hope, I gave my heart, until the two
Were torn apart
I pray tomorrow finds me back where I belong
I gave my heart, I gave my blood, and sill I stand
against the flood.
I'm holding on, holding on, I'm holding on

-"Holding On" by The Parlor Mob

Chapter Thirteen:

That Mourns in Lonely Exile Here

Then:

To be bluntly honest, it sounded to Jesse like Satan was trying to sell Sam on his completely Loony-Toons bullshit logic, but at the moment she was still trying to wrap her mind around the whole 'I just killed two-thirds of an entire town and didn't even see a problem with it' attitude. Great, to make things even worse, she was dealing with a sympathetic psychopath who thought that the entire human race wasn't worth the air they breathed. Sam, however, did not seem to be as intimidated as she was, because he just stared flatly at Lucifer, his expression one of tightly restrained disgust.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Lucifer dropped his shovel as he stared intently at the younger man, and then took a step forward towards them. Jesse didn't even have time to react as Sam immediately reached back and planted one hand on her chest before he shoved her backwards, away from Satan. And, of course, as per her usual luck, Jesse landed butt-first in the thick mud behind her with an audible 'squelch' that made her wince. Okay, there was no way that anyone could not have noticed that.

When she looked up, her breath caught in her throat as she realized that not only had she attracted far more attention than she should have, but Lucifer was no longer focused on Sam. Instead, he was staring straight at her with a kind of intense shock, almost as though he thought that she had appeared from thin air. Jesse took all of two seconds to realize that the Fallen was no longer ignoring her, or whatever the hell it had been, and immediately dropped a panicked curse as she began to scramble backwards, trying to get back to her feet so she could follow her original instincts and proceed to run like mad.

Of course, Sam whipped around to look at what had caught the Devil's attention and paled as he seemed to realize that instead of protecting her from Lucifer's attention, he had all but thrown her out in front of him.

"Jesse, run!" he bellowed, and the artist lost no time in preparing to follow his directive as she started to back up, keeping her gaze rigidly fixed on Lucifer.

Who was suddenly… not there… anymore.

Jesse spun around so she could do as Sam had instructed… and found herself staring directly at Lucifer as the fallen angel stood a little more than a foot in front of her, a look of puzzled curiosity on his face as he tilted his head slightly to the side. The movement made Jesse feel like her skin was about to crawl right off her as she clenched her teeth and took a step back, her eyes wide with pure terror as she sucked in a sharp, panicked breath.

"And where did you come from?" the Morningstar asked softly as he stepped towards the thoroughly-terrified art student. "You weren't here earlier. I would have noticed otherwise."

Somewhere in the back of her mind the snarky remark of 'Well then maybe you should get your eyes checked' surfaced, but Jessed was too scared to even think about saying it. All she could do was stand there, completely frozen from fear as she trembled visibly. Any thoughts about running or fighting back, trying to lash out and throw her defiance into his face the way she had with Gabriel were now long forgotten. She was standing less than a foot away from the Devil himself, and all she could do was stand there, shaking like a scared animal.

It was nothing like when she had met Gabriel. Even though the archangel had caused her severe physical harm and honestly scared the shit out of her, dealing with him was nothing compared to what Jesse faced now. While Lucifer looked calm and spoke gently, there was something about him, a hidden darkness, per se, that made Jesse feel like her heart was about to pound right out of her chest. She'd take re-living the entire fiasco in Wellington over this. At least that way she'd be to hell and gone from the fallen angel currently staring at her like he had never seen anything like her before.

Lucifer frowned slightly as he scrutinized her closely, blue eyes narrowing a fraction before he slowly reached out and lifted up the lock of hair that was hanging over Jesse's shoulder and began to curiously run his fingers through the fine light-brown strands. A startled scream tried to wrench its way from her mouth before Jesse clamped her mouth shut, forcing the terrified noise to die off in her throat and she inhaled sharply through her nose, her nostrils flaring. Suddenly, recognition dawned in Lucifer's eyes, and he let the strands of hair slip from his fingers as he stared at Jesse with something akin to surprise before it vanished behind the placid, calm mask.

"I haven't seen one of your kind in… a long time," the Morningstar said softly, although Jesse got the feeling that whatever he was talking about, he didn't mean it as a good thing. The look of deep rage in his eyes though, one that was barely masked by his calm facial expression, did very little to help. "A very long time."

Now:

For a moment, Jesse's mind went blank as she stared incredulously at Lucifer, struggling to comprehend just exactly what he was talking about. What did he mean that he hadn't seen one of her 'kind' in a long time? She was human, and she was no different than anyone else as far as she knew. Besides, if she was something else, the Winchesters would have known after they had done all of the tests on her to see if she was some kind of creeping fugly. Heck, Castiel would have probably known the second that he set eyes on her.

After a second, Lucifer seemed to catch on to the fact that she did not have a bloody clue what he was talking about, and for one moment, Jesse thought that she saw a look of sickening satisfaction flash across the Morningstar's face. However, any speculation of the fact of what she may have or have not seen was swiftly purged from her mind when the fallen angel suddenly reached out and gently caressed Jesse's cheek in the horrifyingly mocking parody of a lover's touch, making the young woman go ramrod straight as she stood stiffly in her spot, eyes wide with visible terror and shudders of revulsion wracking her entire body.

He was touching her! Satan was touching her while she just stood there and shook like a leaf!

"Is this the best that my Father can do?" Lucifer asked softly as he gave Jesse a smug, condescending half-smile, slowly raising his eyebrows as he did so, clearly enjoying her visible horror. "A frightened child?"

There was no answer to his question as the woman continued to stare almost sightlessly at him, her jaw set at she clenched her teeth so hard that it hurt to prevent any noise from escaping. Smirking, the Morningstar turned around and slowly meandered away from Jesse, focusing his attention on his true vessel even as the art student felt as though she was about to faint.

Shortly after that, when Castiel showed up to almost literally pull their asses out of the fire, Jesse was still standing there, almost rigid in shock.

"Jesse, I need you to grab that book for me, the one on the top shelf with the red cover."

The young woman looked up from the auto parts that she was focused on cleaning before they could be shipped or delivered to the individuals who had ordered them, and immediately set aside the grease-stained red shop rag that she had been using before wiping her hands off on a cleaner rag, and heading over towards one of Bobby's coveted bookshelves. When she saw where the hunter was pointing, she gingerly stepped around a stack of books on the floor and put her hand up near a book that looked like it fit the description.

"This one?"

Bobby huffed slightly with mild annoyance as he further extrapolated upon what he was looking for. "No, not that one. I want the one with the Sumerian writing, not Greek."

Jesse shrugged sheepishly before she scooted over a bit and seized the appropriate book, and then made her way back over to where Bobby was seated before she carefully deposited the book on the table in front of him. The older hunter muttered a gruff 'thank you' as he set to work on the research that a younger hunter had asked for, and Jesse watched him for a moment before she went back to cleaning the auto parts that someone had called and asked for.

In the time after the fiasco in Carthage, life had taken even more of a dramatic change for Jesse than her original arrival in the Supernatural reality in some ways, and settled into a slightly more normal pace for her in others. When Castiel had managed to rescue the Winchesters and Jesse from the site where Lucifer chose to summon Death, Dean had lapsed into what could only be described as depression. He got violently drunk and went outside, where he bellowed himself hoarse as he flung numerous profanity-laced accusations at God, Heaven, and anything else he could think of to blame through the haze of alcohol as he ranted and raved about the deaths of Jo and Ellen, and all of the townspeople in Carthage who had done nothing wrong but live there. Sam, on the other hand, had just moped about, occasionally going outside to try and talk some sense into his brother until Dean finally got fed up with him and punched him in the face.

Bobby, upon seeing the barely-hidden look of shock and terror on Jesse's face as she witnessed Dean's drunken display, had ordered her to stay inside and steer clear of both of the boys. Apparently he had figured out within moments that Jesse not only hated being around arguments that involved copious amounts of shouting, especially with the way she would flinch, but she had also never witnessed someone get absolutely plastered the way Dean had, much less a violent drunk. That night, she'd been chivied up to the bedroom that she had occupied during her previous stay, and hadn't come back down until noon the next day, where she was met with a gruff, but kind, greeting from Bobby and a distracted hello from Sam.

Given the fact that neither one of them had treated her like Judas Iscariot, Jesse could only conclude that Sam had mercifully been unable to hear the little one-sided conversation that Lucifer'd had with her. Although, just from how softly the Morningstar had been when he had spoke, it was entirely possible that not only had Sam been far enough away from them that he hadn't been able to hear the conversation, but also Lucifer hadn't made himself loud enough to be heard when he'd proceeded to scare the every-loving hell out of Jesse. It was something that both relieved her and frightened her at the same time.

To be brutally honest though, the thought kept coming back to Jesse even after the decision was made to leave her at Bobby's while Sam and Dean drove off to do their usual gig: what had Lucifer meant when he'd said that he hadn't seen one of her kind in a long kind? Had he just been trying to scare her, or was there actually something physically wrong with her? Granted, he was Satan after all, and one of his many names was the Prince of Lies. Her best bet was probably to do as her mother had once suggested, and take what the Morningstar had said with a grain of salt, and wash it down with a ton of water. She was fine, honest.

Besides, why on Earth should she believe anything that Lucifer had to say?

Slowly, as she began to adjust to the sudden changes in what now passed as normal for her life after the initial first two weeks of insanity, Jesse began to get acquainted with just coping with reality. It didn't consist of her normal schedule of wake up, go to school, go home, go to work, do homework, and sleep anymore. After Carthage though, it transformed into something where she woke up and went to bed as usual, but instead of school, of learning through classes on art history and drawing, painting techniques, color, and how to breathe life into a charcoal sketch, she spent the days assisting Bobby with whatever he needed.

For the most part, she was the pair of legs and strong back that he used whenever he needed her. She fetched books for him and assisted with research whenever another hunter called and asked for help with whatever god-awful thing had sprung up from the asshole of the world thanks to the Apocalypse. Occasionally she cooked meals that she remembered from home, and then was rewarded with Bobby's incredulity at what she prepared because she was used to eating better and more differently than most people did. For instance, cheese soufflé, while complicated as hell to make, was a cheap meal that only required some form of vegetable as a side, but Bobby had stared at it like Jesse had just put something from outer space on his plate. In the end, the gruff old hunter had liked it, but after that Jesse made a point of clearing whatever she made for dinner with him when she cooked.

Just like she used to do with her parents back at home.

Also, Bobby taught Jesse, who had never really done more mechanic-wise on a car than replace a fan belt on her truck or change a battery or helped to change the oil, how to salvage car parts for his business. And in return, she was the one who cleaned them up and packaged them up for sale, occasionally delivering them to people who had asked for the parts if they lived nearby. The cover story that Bobby had supplied her with, if anyone asked her who she was, consisted of the fact that she was his niece, and she had come up from Arizona to help out after the hunter had become confined to his wheelchair.

Unfortunately, Jesse found out the hard way the first time she went out grocery shopping by herself that her cover, while convenient, opened her up to all sorts of gossip. Apparently Bobby was considered to be the town drunk, and every single damn busybody and their dog in the city limits of Sioux Falls wanted the juicy inside scoop on Bobby Singer's 'niece'. The artist quickly learned that the best way to deal with the gossips was to use the same method that she had learned over time while dealing with her mother's side of the family: plaster a smile on her face and pretend that everything was alright, that she didn't give a rat's ass about how they were trying to hurt her or someone she loved with poisoned words, even while a part of her inside shrieked in outrage over their actions.

The woman's mouth had briefly quirked up into a mirthless smirk when she realized that her experiences with the insane, twisted, and convoluted dealings involving her mother's side of the family – her aunts, grandpa and step-grandmother, cousins, and her grandmother – had prepared her for some of the close-minded idiocy that she was confronted with.

Slowly, as November drifted into December and snow began to coat the surrounding area, Jesse began to fall into a routine of sorts. One day, as she meandered about the back edge of Bobby's property, she stumbled upon a group of high-school age boys playing ice hockey on the frozen pond back there and struck up a friendship with them, going and playing hockey with them when she had a chance from time to time. She dismantled and cleaned car parts as per Bobby's request. Occasionally she went grocery shopping whenever the older man couldn't get to it. She delivered cart parts to people who needed them.

It was routine, a semi-normal method of day-to-day living, but in the end it was a great deal easier on Jesse than the few weeks that she had spent with the Winchesters. They had smothered her with their suspicion, while Bobby let her have a reasonable amount of freedom. And so, time passed.

Until at roughly ten o'clock at night on December 24th, Jesse looked over at the calendar and realized with a kind of dull shock that it was Christmas Eve.

"Where are you going?"

The woman looked over at Bobby, halfway through shrugging on the new jacket that the hunter had very stubbornly insisted she needed in lieu of the much thinner corduroy jacket that she'd been in possession of before. The dark brown, heavy cotton jacket was a little big on her, even though it was a small, but she wasn't about to complain. It was definitely warmer, that much was certain, and it had a lighter brown hood much like a sweatshirt, only on her jacket it was detachable.

Jesse looked mildly apprehensive before she let out a long sigh and gave the older man a rueful grin as she reached up to rub the back of her neck.

"I was getting ready to go to midnight mass," she admitted quietly, and a single graying eyebrow arched upwards at her words.

"You're joking."

Jesse winced slightly at the older man's flatly disbelieving tone before she gave Bobby a pleading look, one that was a mixture of both exasperation and determination.

"Look, I know that it probably doesn't make much sense to you, but… I need to go," she said quietly before she let out a soft sigh. "This probably sounds stupid, but… my family, every year, we go to mass on Christmas Eve. Once my brother and I got old enough to stay up late and not get cranky over it, we started going to midnight mass… and, even though they're not here… I still want to go."

For a moment, Bobby looked like he wanted to argue against her leaving, before he let out a weary sigh and gave the younger woman a piercing look that spoke volumes of what he thought about her decision.

"Sometimes kid, I don't think I get you," he grumped as he wheeled himself into the hallway. "Got the damned Apocalypse going on, angels trying to kill us all, demons runnin' amuck, and you want to go to church."

Brown eyes crinkled slightly at the corners as Jesse laughed quietly. "Well, insanity does run in my family."

The hunter rolled his eyes upwards in response before he made a shooing gesture with one hand, his face set into his typical gruff expression. She knew that the older man was trying not to limit her freedom to an almost stifling extent the way the Winchesters had. It made her time at the salvage yard that much more bearable, and kept her from going stir-crazy.

"Well then git," Bobby muttered as he began to rotate the wheels on his wheelchair so he could go back out into the main room where had had set up residence after losing the use of his legs. "You already have the truck keys."

The young woman stood there for a moment, slightly dumbfounded, before a small smile crossed her face and she nodded.

"Thanks Bobby."

Bobby gave a noncommittal grunt even as she walked out into the frigid midwinter air, carefully shutting the door behind her. For one moment, Jesse stood out on Bobby's front porch, her breath turning white in the nighttime cold as she stared up at the cloud-covered sky, a wave of homesickness and nostalgia washing over her. How many times in her life had she stared up at a winter sky like this, silently wishing for a white Christmas? After a minute or so, the young woman tore her gaze away from the stars and began to trudge across the snow-covered yard towards the old '81 pickup that the old hunter was allowing her to use for the duration of her stay with him. While the faded blue and gray Chevy was hardly in pristine condition, it did two very important things: it ran, and the heater worked.

Jesse sighed quietly as she trudged through the fresh snow that went halfway up her calf, pulling out a pair of fleece-lined leather gloves from her jacket pocket and donning them before she unlocked the driver side door and pulled out the ice scraper that she kept inside the truck. The woman muttered several not-so-nice things about ice and snow under her breath as she worked to scrape the accumulated snowfall off of the windshield, shivering slightly as she worked. She was an Arizona native, born and bred, and for the first time in her life she was exposed to winter weather 24/7. No wonder her dad had hated living in Michigan during the winter growing up.

Shoveling off the sidewalk, clearing the driveway, scraping ice and snow off of the car whenever she needed to drive somewhere… it really was a pain in the ass. And if she had ever thought that Arizona in the winter was cold, well, North Dakota was a thousand times worse.

It took a few minutes, but Jesse finally finished up and hopped into the vehicle before she started up the engine, letting the car warm up as she sat there and shivered. It was colder than all get out – she had absolutely no desire to say hell anymore, not after what she had seen – and if she was going to freeze her ass off outside, then she fully intended on doing it out in front of the church.

Sioux Falls had a multitude of Catholic churches scattered throughout the town, but the one closest to Bobby's was a small one, and by the time Jesse had arrived roughly ten minutes before midnight, it was packed. The young woman lingered inside near the back of the church for a few minutes before the unmistakable, incredibly strong scent of incense burning hit her, and Jesse paled slightly as her nostrils flared. Back home, it was practically tradition for her family to stand outside instead of sitting in one of the pews, and the incense was the exact reason for it. Travis always said that it was supposed to drive away evil, and then he'd flash her that devil-may-care smirk that she'd grown up knowing before he mused that they must have known he was coming. Her mom would crack jokes that they were burning a brick of hash inside. Both her father and Andy got raging headaches from the incense, and once Travis had even passed out during an Easter service when he hadn't managed to exit the chapel after communion fast enough.

Fortunately, they'd been with Max at that time, so he'd been able to help Jesse and Andy catch his brother before he concussed himself.

For the most part, the heavily-scented smoke just set off Jesse's asthma, so she typically elected to stay outside in lieu of coughing up a lung. The woman looked up at the altar for a moment, her eyes focusing on the wooden representation of Jesus on the cross, before she retreated back outside into the single-digit weather. She'd rather freeze her ass off outside than have an asthma attack, even if Bobby had managed to get a nebulizer and medication for her with his doctor contact.

Jesse stood there out in the cold for several seconds before she took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she listened to the mass start up. As she let the music wash over her, her mind drifted off to the previous Christmas, where she had been standing outside by the church doors with her family and allowed her mind to drift. If she kept her eyes closed, she could almost pretend that she was back out in front of her church, sandwiched in between her mom and Andy as the music wafted out to them in the bitterly cold night.

"O come o come Emanuel…" she sang softly, her voice hanging eerily in the snowy night as she followed the people singing inside. "To free your captive Israel. That mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear."

Her voice wasn't great, but it didn't exactly make dogs start howling either. She just didn't like singing in front of other people; singing in church was the only exception, 'cause nobody cared about your voice in there.

"You know, most sane people stand inside the church when it's snowing like this," someone remarked tartly from behind her, and the woman sighed heavily as she opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder at Gabriel. Part of her was surprised by the archangel's abrupt appearance, and yet another part of her was annoyed at the same time.

"Is that bitching that I hear?" she finally commented offhandedly as she returned her gaze to the church in front of her, deliberately keeping her tone light. "Huh, I would have thought that oversized ego of yours would keep you warm. Guess not."

There was a low growl of irritation from behind her, which Jesse pretended to ignore as she began to drum her fingers against her right thigh in an approximation of the rhythm to the song being sung inside the church. The frigid winter air stung the exposed skin on her wrist when the cuff of her jacket pulled back slightly from the movement, but the repetitive movement gave her some measure of comfort. It was actually a sign of just how nervous she was, and a remnant of her days in band. However, Jesse was bound and determined not to let the angel get a rise out of her, and flat-out ignoring him seemed to be the best way to go.

For a few moments, it was blessedly silent, and Jesse shoved her hands into jacket pockets to protect them from the nippy air. She knew that Gabriel hadn't left though, due to the tension in the air and the way that fine hairs along the nape of her neck prickled from the force of the glare being leveled her way. Jesse kept on ignoring the seething archangel behind her as she tried to listen to the sounds of the mass being projected out into the little courtyard, although the tentative peace was abruptly shattered by a sharp whistle, quickly followed by a scornful laugh.

"Wow, I have to say, I just love the Winchester Special you're sporting tonight," the former pagan derided as he pointedly looked the young woman up and down, taking in what she was wearing with his lip twisted up into a visible sneer. "So, tell me, you going to start acting like the muttonheads as well as dressing like them?"

Jesse flinched slightly at the taunt, for she was no longer wearing any of her old clothes. Instead, she was wearing a gray men's Henley, with a russet and green flannel button-down thrown over, and topped off with the dark brown jacket she'd gotten recently, as well as a durable pair of jeans and a pair of battered dark leather work boots. It was all durable clothing that she wouldn't get too upset about if it got ruined, and she basically looked like any hunter out there – a far cry from the college student who wore semi-fitted jeans and Converse.

It was a cheap shot, and Jesse knew it, but she was already sick of the angel trying to annoy the hell out of her for no clearly discernable reason. She didn't want to be here. She was tired, and all she had wanted to do tonight was to attempt to forget the fact that it was Christmas, and she was facing the very real possibility of never being able to see her family again. It didn't help that part of her felt like crying over the sheer feeling of loss that tried to overwhelm her whenever she remembered her family. And that was all it took to light the fuse on the woman's temper as she gritted her teeth and let out a low, aggravated growl.

"Oh, for the love of-! Just… leave me alone before I tie your sorry ass to the top of the closest Christmas tree!" she snapped irritably as she rounded on Gabriel. "Can't I just have one day where you don't bug the shit out of me, just one?"

"December 19th, 2009," Gabriel suddenly said flatly as he stared intently at Jesse, his eyes narrowed slightly.

The younger woman had been about to try and focus on the Christmas service once again before the angel had spoken, and she stopped short as she slowly turned around to face him.

"What?" she asked quietly as she quirked an eyebrow and canted her head slightly to the side as she shot the older man an uncomprehending look. "What are you talking about?"

Gabriel shot her a look that very plainly said he thought she was a moron.

"December 19th, 2009. You asked for one day one when I didn't bug you. As I can recall, I wasn't anywhere near you, your thoughts, or your dreams, not any of it," he concluded almost matter-of-factly, although there was a barely-there smug undertone to his words. "You can also include November 21st, 24th, and 29th, along with December 1st, 3rd, and 8th. And since I had personally never met you before November 5th, 2009, you can also add all the days of your life before that point."

A chill washed over the young woman for a moment as her eyes widened, and it took every ounce of self-restraint that she possessed to keep from shuddering. Okay, that was more than a little creepy that Gabriel knew when he had been in her dreams, or when she had had thought about him. That sounded way too much like stalking to her, and to be honest, it kind of scared her. Jesse stared at the archangel point-blank for a moment, her expression utterly deadpan even as she pressed her lips together thinly before she shook her head and let out an utterly disgusted sigh of aggravation. She refused to let Gabriel see just how much his statement had unnerved her.

"Very funny, Mister Smartass," she grumbled under her breath as she rolled her eyes before she returned her attention to the pain in her ass standing not even four feet away from her. "Allow me to rephrase my question then: why are you bothering me today, out of all days? Don't you have anything better to do, like, oh, I don't know, bog goblins, or announce that today a savior is born to some shepherds?"

An odd expression flickered across Gabriel's face at the remark, a mixture of nostalgia, regret, and amusement all bundled up into a single look before he flashed her a smug, all knowing smirk that absolutely set the woman's teeth on edge.

"Nah, sorry, no announcements like that. That was over 2,000 years ago, remember?" he said knowingly. "I've already been there, done that."

The woman pulled a face at that and rolled her eyes. Why, out of all of the several billion people on the planet, was she the one unlucky enough to have a pagan god/archangel following almost her every move? And a smartass one at that. It was enough to give any sane individual a headache.

Actually, she was fairly certain that Gabriel's abrasive personality would drive even a saint to violence.

"Cute," Jesse finally remarked almost tonelessly. "Real cute." She paused for a moment and frowned as she glanced over at the former pagan. "Look, can you just give me a straight answer on why you're following me? In case you haven't noticed, I kind of want to be left alone right now."

The archangel stared at her for a moment, a single golden-brown eyebrow raised as he looked at the art student askance, that odd, perpetual little half-smirk that seemed to be ever-present no matter what still lingering on his mouth.

"Why, so you can keep on moping in the snow while the sane people inside are nice and warm?" Gabriel snarked as he crossed his arms over his chest, a slightly vicious tint to his expression.

The jab definitely hit home as Jesse stared at the male for a moment, struggling not to show just how much the remark had startled her. It was more than a little eerie at how he'd made the comment, like she wasn't one of the sane people. And then the woman paled slightly as she remembered the flippant remark that she had made to Bobby only half an hour before, when she had jokingly commented that insanity ran in her family. Had he been watching her before she had even gone to mass? She shuddered at the thought before she closed her eyes and sighed.

"You know what, I don't even know why I'm surprised," she muttered quietly as she opened her eyes and stared at the 'Trickster' with something closely akin to resignation. She gave a soft, short laugh that contained absolutely no humor as she shook her head. "I mean, really… After all of the shit I've dealt with, and… wow. Just… wow." Jesse looked the angel standing right in front of her dead in the eyes, a slightly pained expression on her face. A memory of a frantic, emotionally distraught teenager standing outside at two in the morning, begging for any divine presence to intervene on the behalf of a family member came to mind, and even with five years of distance between herself and the adolescent she had once been, Jesse still felt her stomach twist into knots. She still remembered the very stunned and horrified revelation that she had stumbled across when she had returned inside, only to find that no amount of praying could save someone she loved. How God and angels didn't give a flying fuck about the desperate prayer of a single human being. "Seventeen years old, scared out of my mind and grieving like no other, and I was right. You, all of you, are dicks." She snorted. "I should have known."

Not surprisingly, Gabriel looked more than a little indignant at the insult that she had just let slip out like she didn't care about what the results would be. Actually, indignant wasn't so much the word that she was looking for as it was pissed. And the expression of pure fury that had briefly flashed across Gabriel's face was definitely a good indication of that.

"What?" he hissed, and any fear that Jesse may have felt over the fact that she had a legitimately pissed-off archangel glaring at her like he was only a few seconds away from smiting the crap out of her was covered up by the sense of defeat and numb exhaustion that seemed to follow her everywhere nowadays. She wasn't scared, at least not in the mind-numbingly terrified way that she had been back in Carthage.

"It's true. You… none of you give a crap about what's going on down here," the woman said as she indicated meaningfully to the area around her. "Heaven, Hell, everyone's playing their own games and screwing around with what's supposed to happen just because they're tired of the responsibility and want to shove the whole mess into Dad's lap." Jesse smiled bitterly. "And the angels… all you guys see us as is a bunch of your Dad's little toys, and that's only when you're being nice. The other ninety percent of the time, we're just a waste of space and oxygen according to you lot, plumbing on two legs."

For a being of unfathomable celestial power who only resided in a human vessel to not make people keel over at the very sight of him, Gabriel displayed a very good grasp on human emotion and the needs of a physical body as he sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth and flushed slightly from what could only be anger as he glared at her. It probably had something to do with the past two thousand years he had spent on Earth, hiding among the pagans. He looked like he would have loved nothing more than to banish her to some far-off place where she would die a slow and painful death, the fingers on his right hand twitching madly in the obvious desire to snap them and shunt her off to some long-forgotten hellhole. Instead, he settled for one hand snapping out to seize her by the front of her jacket before he hauled the human woman closer to him, his face set into a tight mask of barely restrained rage.

"Don't you ever talk about my family like that!" he hissed venomously, fingers digging deep into thick, textured cotton fabric as he glowered at Jesse. "You know nothing about me, or any of my brothers, so don't you dare talk about us like you even have a clue about anything. And don't you even think about lumping me in with the rest of my family. I've been here down on Earth for longer than your linear little mind could even comprehend," Gabriel punctuated his remark with a small shake. "Despite what you may think, I only treat humans poorly when they deserve it, and hey, I can't help it if most of them do." He paused momentarily before he flashed the woman an infuriatingly smug smirk. "But hey, you've seen the Spearmint Rhino, right?" Gabriel paused briefly as he looked the young woman up and down, taking in the clearly confused expression on her face that indicated she had absolutely no clue what the hell he was talking about, before he let out a harsh laugh, his tone deeply sarcastic. "That would be a no, wouldn't it? Wouldn't surprise me, you being one of the many Mother Teresa's of the world. And wow. Naive and idealistic – tell me, how the hell have you kept the world from eating you alive?"

Brown eyes narrowed sharply at the multiple insults, both to her faith, her morals, and the character of humanity in general, and Jesse twitched slightly, her hands balling into fists at her sides as she looked like she dearly wanted to punch the angel in the face, or do something even worse. After all, he was in a male vessel, and angel or not, he still had a male's weakness. Hurting her knee would be worth it at this point.

"At least we try," she ground out. "Which is more than what I could say for you."

Gabriel canted his head to the side slightly as he smirked at her before he roughly let go of the young woman's jacket, and she stumbled back a few steps. Jesse quickly regained her bearing though, and she adopted a stiff position as she straightened up and stared at the angel steadily. For some reason, that seemed to amuse him, because he flashed her a humorless smile that was all teeth, the warning gleam in his green-gold eyes pure Loki.

"You might want to stop assuming things about me," he remarked almost casually in a tone that sent chills down Jesse's spine, which she attempted to stave off by standing up even straighter. "Clearly you haven't learned your lesson from the last time."

The woman almost bristled at the nonchalant threat before she sucked in a deep, steadying breath in an effort to calm herself, ignoring the way the freezing cold air burned at her mouth and lungs when she inhaled.

"What are going to do, smite me?" Jesse asked rhetorically, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and pressing into her ribcage as her hands clenched at the fabric of her jacket almost desperately even as she stared at the infuriated angel with a hard glint to her eyes. "Go right ahead, because you know what, there's nothing that you can do to me that is worse than what I'm already living through right now. I mean, I'm up to my eyeballs in the Apocalypse, and I'm seeing and actually interacting with things that I've never even dreamed of, much less read about." The woman made a sharp gesture as she held her hand up eye level before she let it drop down to her side and stared challengingly at Gabriel. "But the worst thing, and I do mean the absolute worst, is the fact that I know my entire family is probably having a collective heart attack right now. I mean, I've been missing for almost two months now – my parents probably think that I'm dead, or worse. And I know that no matter how badly I want to call them and tell them that I'm okay, but hey, I can't come home yet because fate's being a bitch, I can't." She forced that last part out through bared teeth, a mixture of anger and despair on her face as she struggled to reign in her emotions. "My parents are probably expecting to find my body dumped somewhere out in the middle of the desert, or at the bottom of Tempe Town Lake, or something. But they'll never find a body. And if I die here, they still won't have a body. They'll never know what happened to me, and I know that. Now that… that's my own personal hell, putting my family through that kind of crap and not being able to fix a damn thing."

For one moment, Gabriel looked like he wanted to say something as he stared at her like he had never seen something like her before. It was a fleeting expression though, and for one moment, Jesse briefly thought that behind the snarky, caustic mask that the archangel wore, she could see a flicker of surprise and maybe even... panic? But before she could even question it, whatever she had thought she'd seen was gone, and Gabriel stared at her for a moment before he gave a disbelieving snort.

"You seriously believe that?" he asked, his tone deeply cynical. "Why?"

Jesse tilted her head to the side as she looked at him oddly before she shook her head and sighed, deciding that arguing with a being millennia older than her just wasn't worth it. Well that, and she was already more emotionally exhausted than she would ever care to admit.

"Do you even know what it feels like… to, to be so in over your head that you just…" At this, the woman trailed off, looking utterly lost and so close to just breaking down that it was scary. Instead of the defiant, furious, and utterly immobile human being that Gabriel remembered from his previous dealings, she looked exhausted and almost fragile, like she was about to shatter right then and there in the church courtyard from the pressure. "Look, just think of this way. I'm hanging by my fingertips off a ledge… over the friggin' Grand Canyon, and two to three inches of dirt is all that's between me and a free fall all the way down to the Colorado River." Jesse gave the archangel a strained, slightly bitter smile as she held up her pointer and middle fingers on her right hand. "Two to three inches, and then I'm freefalling. No one's going to save me, no waking up, nothing. Once I slip, I'm gone."

After several moments of deafening silence, Gabriel quirked an eyebrow incredulously as he gave the woman a firmly disbelieving look, twisting his head slightly to the side as though he could get a better look at just what exactly was running through her head that way. Slightly unnerved, Jesse drew back and watched the runaway archangel with extreme caution. She was rudely reminded of the fact that she was not only standing in close proximity to the archangel Gabriel, who had once struck a man dumb for his doubt and brought about the destruction of Sodom, but also the Norse trickster deity, Loki, who was well-known for his own less than kind actions as well.

So, not exactly someone that most sane people would intentionally smart off to.

"And just why can't you call your family?" Gabriel asked abruptly, his tone borderline sarcastic as he raised an eyebrow and shot her a deeply skeptical look. "It shouldn't be that hard. Even I know how to use a phone."

"And you were probably the first person to ever crank call Alexander Bell," the artist shot back wearily as she reached up with one hand to absentmindedly massage the side of her head with the tips of her fingers as a dull ache began to make its presence known. She really didn't need this kind of stress right now. All she wanted was to be left alone, or, even better, to be able to go home.

"You're avoiding the subject," Gabriel pointed out, and Jesse looked up and gave the insensitive, aggravating archangel the best possible approximation of her dad's infamous 'piss me off and die' glare.

"And why do you even pretend to care?" she growled. "My family is none of your damned business."

A single eyebrow rose upwards skeptically as Gabriel frowned at her. "And you're still not giving me a straight answer."

Jesse literally growled as she glared at the angel, anger and frustration clouding her judgment as she almost literally blew a gasket.

"It's complicated as hell, and absolutely none of your bloody business! I don't get it, just what is it with you guys?" she demanded as she jabbed a finger at Gabriel, teeth bared slightly as she glared at the archangel. "Why the hell do you all seem to think that I'm some kind of strange… thing to be examined or something? First Cas, then you, and now, as the icing on the bloody cake, even Satan seems to think that I'm, and I quote 'weird'! I have had it up to here with being stalked by angels! Well, here's some news for you, bub: stop following me around! Got it? I am sick and tired of being stalked by an angel who doesn't give a flying rat's ass about my collective well-being!"

Jesse was so worked up as she didn't even notice the brief flash of shock on Gabriel's face when she mentioned that she had been in close contact with the Devil, as well as the way he paled slightly. She was a bit more concerned with attempting to restrain her temper so she wouldn't lose it and punch an archangel right in the face. Generally not a good idea, even if he was being an arrogant ass.

"You met Lucifer?"

The question was so quiet that she almost missed it, but the way Gabriel said it stopped the woman in mid-rant as she looked at him strangely and cocked an eyebrow.

"Uh, yeah, I did…" she said slowly. "Kind of hard to forget, actually, especially since I was so scared out of my mind when he started talking to me, while standing less than a foot away from me and touching me, that I almost had a friggin' heart attack."

The older man stared at her for a moment, an indescribable look on his face. "What did he say?"

Jesse stopped dead for a moment, her brain not quite computing what had just been said, before she crossed her arms over her chest defensively and shuddered slightly. It was not something that she particularly enjoyed remembering, and had actually done her damndest to shove into the furthest corner of her mind. Not that she had exactly succeeded, but she had tried. There was no reasonably feasible way that she could describe just how terrified she had felt while facing the Morningstar, or how tainted she had felt afterwards. Even now, just over a month later, sometimes she could still feel the phantom touch of the fallen archangel, which of course would bring to mind the smug, triumphant expression he had sported when he'd realized that the art student was completely and utterly scared shitless of him. It was something that had honestly both terrified and disgusted her at the same time.

No matter what situation she was in, Jesse hated being a coward, but even now she suspected that her apparent cowardice was what had saved her life. Somehow, she didn't think that Lucifer would have let her leave Carthage alive if she had told him to fuck off, go blind, and die the way that part of her in the back corner of her mind had been screaming at her to do instead of standing there and all but shitting herself in terror like a helpless little girl.

When Gabriel looked at her meaningfully, his expression tinged with annoyance, the young woman reached up and rubbed the back of her neck with her right hand, a somewhat dead look in her eyes before she shook her head slightly to dispel the morbid thoughts running through her head and looked the impatient archangel in the eyes.

"Something about how he hadn't seen one of my kind in a long time," she finally admitted quietly, looking thoughtful for a little bit before her mouth twisted up into a bitter smirk and her tone became so purely sarcastic that it was hard to ignore. "Now granted, that doesn't exactly make much sense, because last time I checked, about 51 percent of the Earth's population is female. Either that, or he was talking about how he'd never seen a short, sarcastic Irishwoman who looks like a kid and isn't afraid to tell an angel to go pound sand."

Gabriel shot her a sharp look at that, almost as though he wasn't pleased by the sarcastically flippant remark, although he also appeared somewhat disconcerted by it as well. Jesse raised an eyebrow slowly as she glanced at him slightly before she shook her head and fished a knit beanie out of one of her jacket pockets, fingering the cream and brown wool before she decided that she'd had enough of the cold and pulled it on. One of the people who she had delivered parts to within the past month had been an elderly woman who had ordered the auto part as a surprise for her son, who was restoring a classic car. She had been in the middle of a knitting project when Jesse had shown up, and had insisted that the artist stick around so she could finish the hat that she was working on once she'd realized that Jesse didn't have one of her own. To be honest, Jesse thought that she was lonely, especially since the woman, one Mrs. Mullroy, had plied her with milk and fresh-baked cookies to keep her around until the beanie had been completed.

Not that she had minded, to be honest. The homemade gingerbread that she had been given had been fantastic, to be honest, and the taste had reminded her of the molasses cookies that her dad would bake from time to time using his grandmother's recipe. However, at the same time, it had also made her miss her family even more.

"Bullshit," Gabriel suddenly said without warning, and Jesse gave him an annoyed look before she looked away and rolled her eyes at his attitude.

"Just because you say that it isn't true doesn't mean that it didn't happen," she muttered wearily as she fought back the urge to make a smart remark about how most people with an ounce of common sense didn't claim to have God-awful repetitive nightmares about events that had never happened. Not that she was going to share that particular tidbit with Gabriel. Ever. He was already being enough of an ass to begin with. The last thing she needed to have was him mocking her for having nightmares or anything else.

Actually, between what the abrasive archangel had done when she had originally arrived, the ghosts at the converted Gore Orphanage, and the shitstorm that had gone down in Carthage, nights where Jesse actually had a decent night's sleep were incredibly few and far between. She didn't suddenly shoot awake and start hyperventilating, or roll straight out of bed while trying to escape from whatever she was having a nightmare about, or even wake up feeling like she was about to scream bloody murder anymore, but waking up in a cold sweat and feeling like she was about to be seriously ill was pretty much the norm for her now. While Jesse had always frequently joked that she had been scarred for life at a young age thanks to her dad's influence, as well as his never-ending supply of innuendos, it had always been just that, a joke.

There was a huge difference between the emotional trauma of knowing in intimate detail on how she had been conceived underneath the Christmas tree thanks to her father, and which sadly enough, made sense since she had been born in late September, and knowing what it felt like to be impaled on a pike and die. And then, of course, there was the ever-so-fun part where after that, a pissed off archangel, the self-same one standing in front of her out in the snow in the wee hours of Christmas Day and trying to pry information out of her, went and threw her into another scenario where she would die a horrific and painful death once again. Of course, as per her usual luck, he didn't believe that she'd had a close encounter of the creepy kind with his older brother.

No, if she ever got out of this alive, Jesse was fully aware of the inevitable fact that she was going to need some kind of therapy for what she had been through. However, she also knew that the only kind of counseling that hunters ever got without being sent to the psychiatric ward were provided by Jim, Jack, José, and associates. And she did not want to become an alcoholic just so she could deal with the things that she had seen, especially since she was already in enough danger without being inebriated.

God help her if she was ever drunk and in trouble.

"You know what?" she finally said quietly as she gave Gabriel a frustrated look before she made a sharp cutting motion with her right hand. "Believe me, don't believe me, I don't care anymore. I'm so sick and tired of trying to convince people that I'm telling the truth when they all want to believe that I'm lying my ass off. All I want is to go home, and the only way that'll happen is if I get a miracle, which isn't going to happen, especially with my luck. So just… just leave me alone."

The angel frowned slightly, his eyebrows knitting together as he tilted his head to the side just a fraction before a somewhat smug look crossed his face, and his typical cocksure attitude manifested as he straightened up and grinned broadly at Jesse, rocking back on his heels as he did so. Jesse felt the bottom of her stomach drop out as she swallowed and eyed Gabriel warily with a hesitant, nervous smile. All of her previous experiences involving the runaway archangel dictated that she not only run as fast as she could in the opposite direction, but that she also go camp out inside a circle of holy oil. For the next year, inside a fully stocked, angel-proofed warehouse, with the appropriate hygienic amenities.

After all, the last thing that she needed was to wind up in more trouble with an archangel than she'd already had to deal with. First Gabriel, and then Lucifer. In fact, all she needed now was for Michael and Raphael to show up and make her life even more miserable than she already was. Hell, then she could claim that she'd managed to piss off all four of the archangels!

For some inexplicable reason, Gabriel briefly flashed her a smug, impish smirk even as he sharply tilted his head to the side and took a jaunty step towards her.

"Alrighty then! You want to be left alone, kiddo?" he chirped, his lips stretched into a wide grin that showed his teeth as he raised his eyebrows. "Fine, I'll leave you alone to stew in your own, miserable juices."

Jesse stared at him flatly before she let out a disgusted snort and shook her head.

"Wow," the younger woman said, a strained laugh escaping from her mouth as she reached up and tucked a lock of hair that had fallen into her eyes behind one ear. "You know, for someone who was supposed to be the Messenger, the one who spread the joy of the news of God's son being brought to the world, you sure are one grumpy, miserable son of a bitch."

Gabriel's eyes widened in shock at the remark as he clamped his mouth shut, his nostrils flaring as he sucked in a sharp, furious breath. The angel looked like he was roughly two seconds away from busting out the 'smite' button at her remark, but Jesse straightened up and set her shoulders, readying herself to deal with the fallout of her words. She knew that she was far from perfect herself, but sometimes there were some things that just needed to be said.

"I don't know what your problem is, why you seem to hate my guts, or anything else. But you know what? Who am I to even try and guess?" The artist gave him a bitter smile as she shrugged stiffly. "After all, I know what it feels like to have a fucked-up family. It sucks ass, to be honest." Jesse sighed as she jammed her hands into her jacket pockets, her face scrunched up in a somewhat musing expression. "But, the difference between you and me? I've gotten over it, and I don't take it out on everyone else when they remind me of my family. So, do the rest of the world a favor and pull your head out of your ass."

For one moment, the archangel looked like he had just been slapped before he seemed to regain his senses and glared at her, his eyes narrowing angrily.

"Don't you dare-" he snarled, but Jesse cut him off as she shot the older male a sharply reproving look.

"You know, it's a very human reaction to get angry when you hear something that you don't like," she pointed out reasonably, although on the inside she was practically shaking in terror over the thought of what Gabriel could do to her if she infuriated him enough. "Especially when it's true. Personally, I think that you're just jealous."

The archangel jerked slightly in surprise before he stared at her like she was out of her mind.

"Jealous?" Gabriel bit out incredulously. "Of what? What in my Dad's name is going through your crazy little brain to make you think that I'm jealous?"

For a moment, the art student just smiled faintly before the expression disappeared behind a sad, almost placidly depressed mask.

"I think that you're jealous because the Winchesters would do anything for each other, even die for each other, while your brothers didn't even bother to go look for you after you ran away," Jesse said before she shrugged. "Granted, I'm not a psychology major, so I could be wrong. After all, I was just going off of a hunch." She glanced up at the speechless archangel and offered him a sad, wholly unsatisfied smile that showed she took absolutely no pleasure from stating those words. "But, if the look on your face is any indication, I know that I just hit a sore spot somewhere."

Copper-green eyes widened sharply in shock at the remark, and Jesse decided to get while she still had the opportunity to leave before she was reduced to a bloody pulp. With a sigh, the younger woman turned around and began to head back towards the church so she could at least hear the end of the sermon. Well that, and maybe hope that she hadn't missed communion. As she strode through the thick snow, Jesse heard the sound of movement behind her and let her head drop as she sighed heavily. She was already worn out, and the last thing she needed was to get into another argument.

"Look, Gabriel, I don't want to be involved with Heaven or the Apocalypse anymore than you do," Jesse said quietly. "I just want to be left alone, that's all. Please don't make me have this conversation again." Almost in afterthought, she paused and looked over her shoulder at the older male and gave him a weary, almost defeated smile. "Besides, I hardly think that I'm worth all of the attention that I've been receiving."

With that, Jesse Harper turned back around and disappeared into the warm interior of the Catholic church, leaving behind a stunned and confused Messenger standing out in the falling snow. And yet, at the same time, somewhere in the back of Gabriel's mind, he realized that the human woman still hadn't answered his question on why she hadn't called her family to tell them that she was okay. Which, of course, led to the fact that even more questions sprang up as he thought of how Jesse had phrased her statement.

Even now, something told him that the woman didn't quite fit into the equation, somehow.

Hello… *heaves a huge sigh of relief* I can't believe that I managed to make this deadline. First of all, my work is trying to kill my soul, I swear. Second, tonight, while I was online chatting with my beta, AuntMo, my laptop died on me. I just about shit myself in the process of trying to figure out what the hell happened. So, my next stop within the next day or two? Figure out what the hell just happened, and either go to Staples to get my laptop fixed, or find a way to salvage all of my data, and get a new laptop. So, in other words, fuck my life. First, I get into an accident a month ago and my truck, which I bloody adored is declared totaled, so now I have to bum a ride from my friends or roommate. The insurance company is trying to screw me over, big time. My boss is an ass, and I think I failed a class this semester. Oh, and I have to have enough to pay tuition for the next semester. So to add this to the already massive pile of shit that I have to deal with, I'm only slightly stressed out right now.

Anyways, personal rant asides, thank you to all who have reviewed, favorited, and alerted this story. Thanks to Smiling Loki, Maddy Love Castiel, AuntMo, Maya, KaineShade, SpaceHead3, ephemeral violet, Kali-WolfChilde, TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel, PhoenixRage92, fairytaleluver, , and Laci Cullen.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Since I don't know how long it will take me to fix things, I don't know when I'll update next.